I've bumped up against the comment that Sanda is just Muay Thai + throws on several forums now and gotten pretty tired of either retyping up the whole history or searching for old threads. I just realized I put up probably my most thourough summary on the "Sanda Anyone" thread that exploded to 50+pages a little while ago and thought, what the heck. I would like to have the info readily accesable in the history section. Especialy because there were a couple small details I think I left out or got wrong and it would be cool to have the holes filled in. So here it is:

Modern Wushu was more or less founded right at the end of the Qing dynatsty. The official curriculum in 1918 was divided into the following sections:

In 1909 Huo Yuan Jia established the Jing Wu school that was featured in "Return of The Dragon" where Bruce Lee plays his most famous student, Chen Zhen. The school went through some structural changes and in 1916 became the model for the government supported martial arts training in China that happened later in 1928.

The styles at Jing Wu included Gong Li Quan (aka Gung Lek Kuen), Tan Tui (a northern style with lots of kicking.) and included over 20 different styles in all. The kicks you see in modern wushu can be traced back to Tan Tui and Northern Shaolin NOT TKD.

There were also weapons taught at the time, a half dozen or so single weapons and then over 15 different "vs." types of training.

The next big step in the evolution of modern day Sanda was the establishment of the Nanjing Martial Arts acadamy in 1928. The exams included full contact fights. The Nanjing acadamy tried to bring Shaolin and Wudang styles together under the same roof. They taught Taijiquan, Baguazhan, Xing Yi and also various Shaolin styles. Unfortunately the alliance was not smooth and the school became pretty factionalized.

The style that were taught and which subsequently became the base for the Sanda we see today were as follows:

Xing Yi
Taiji
Baji
Cha Quan
The "new" Wushu that had been created for the earlier schools back in 1909.
Lian Bu Quan
Za Quan
Pigua
Xing Quan

So Sanda, the sport fighting, has been an official staple of the Chinese government supported martial arts since at least 1928. TKD wasn't even created untill several decades later and even then was never much of an influence. Pigua Quan, Cha Quan and Norrthern Shaolin are heavy kicking arts. Boxing has been part of the Chinese curriculum since the beggining but never caught on big probably because no boxer ever won a Sanda tournament. The biggest setback was the Japanese invasion in the 30's. When that happened the government stopped all funding for these schools and the inter-provincial championship tournaments and Chinese wushu took a giant step backwards. The Nanjing Acadamy and it's affilited schools were founded by the KMT. Chang Kai Shek put his man Zhang Zhi Jiang in charge

I'll say straight up that I am not to clear on what happened from the 50's to the 70's but the main thing that has changed recently is that, especially in the early 80's, the training became more specialized. The same athelete will train both performance Wushu and Sanda but there is no longer any real link between the 2 courses. The sanda fighters still use a lot of traditional conditioning methods from northern Shaolin and from Tan Tui but the forms have evolved so much in the past 20 years that they no longer have any real bearing on the fighting.

What an old thread! I was interested in the history of Sanda and I came across this through a google search. Thanks for the info! I'm trying to piece together the history of a lot of different martial arts and it's been really difficult to trace this stuff. This was very helpful.

However, I have some questions about what was said. If Omar doesn't post, as I read in the thread, perhaps someone who knows can answer:

Originally Posted by Omar

The style that were taught and which subsequently became the base for the Sanda we see today were as follows:

Xing Yi
Taiji
Baji
Cha Quan
The "new" Wushu that had been created for the earlier schools back in 1909.
Lian Bu Quan
Za Quan
Pigua
Xing Quan

If Sanda was based on the styles of the first list, was it considered a separate art? Or was it more like a "condensed version" of those arts? Or was it just the venue in which the students fought?

Originally Posted by Omar

The kicks you see in modern wushu can be traced back to Tan Tui and Northern Shaolin NOT TKD.

If Sanda was based in part on that "New Wushu" from 1909, does this mean the kicks in Sanda can be traced largely to Northern Shaolin and Tan tui? The reason I ask is that I notice that Sanda fighters like to kick high, which would make sense if it comes from N. Shaolin.

Do you know if there are techniques which were especially created in Sanda? Or can pretty much everything in it be traced to earlier arts?

And if modern Sanda comes from the military Sanda, how different is that?

Sorry for the barrage of questions. Anything you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for your help.

If Sanda was based on the styles of the first list, was it considered a separate art? Or was it more like a "condensed version" of those arts? Or was it just the venue in which the students fought?

If Sanda was based in part on that "New Wushu" from 1909, does this mean the kicks in Sanda can be traced largely to Northern Shaolin and Tan tui? The reason I ask is that I notice that Sanda fighters like to kick high, which would make sense if it comes from N. Shaolin.

Do you know if there are techniques which were especially created in Sanda? Or can pretty much everything in it be traced to earlier arts?

And if modern Sanda comes from the military Sanda, how different is that?

Sorry for the barrage of questions. Anything you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for your help.

Christian

Sanda is both a ruleset and a style, not always both. See: kickboxing or MMA.

Military Sanda is the PRC armed forces' standard hand to hand system. From what I know it's not any older than "normal" San Da. It's the same, but focused more on "self defense" and "deadly".

Modern Sanda as a style uses basic, effective techniques from the Chinese Martial Arts. as far as I know, no technique is unique to San Da and is not found in any other CMA.

SanDa the style can't be traced back to a single style, and trying to find out which styles what came from would be very hard. This is because, like MMA, different styles and practitioners went into each gym. High kicks probably came from many styles.

I would have to agree with NJM about the various styles of CMA all have a part in Sanda. I found in my experience that fighting in Sanda all of my previous experience in Wushu, Muay Thai (i know not chinese) and especially Tai Chi helped greatly. I would like to add that high kicks, at least in my experience is dangerous. Not so much the one getting kicked, but the the one throwing the kick. Unless you have blazing speed and power, you will easily be trapped and have your base leg blown out or be flipped on your ass.

When I was learning TCC after all the push hands (single/double) and Dai Lu, we worked towards fighting in San Shou. Which I was told that it was a way for all styles of CMA to be able to fight each other and test their skills.

Later when i was learning Wushu and San Shou, my coach used all of the elements for the Chinese systems to help our ability. Speed, endurance, and flexablility (kicks and punches too) from Wushu, using Chin Na and Shuai Jiao for controlling and throwing/wrestling, using yielding ideas from Tai Chi of how to deflect with minimal energy and detect "weak" spots to strike. Fighting in Sanda was the first time I felt all of my MA experience meld together and be effective as one.

i did attend a seminar in Mobile years ago with a teacher for the Chinese military police. He basically had me shin kick a heavy bag off the chains leaning against a wall for hours. (I thought I was back in MT). But his drills and techniques were very similar to my coach who trained, competed, and coached in Hubei. I suppose he was catering his seminar for more "sports" minded as opposed to military.

I never really studied the history of Sanda that Omar and NJM talk about, so thanks for the info.